Now Official: Chrome OS and Chrome Notebooks

At today’s (7th December 2010) event scheduled in San Francisco, Google’s Head of Project Management unveiled updates for three of its leading products – Chrome, Chrome Web Store and Chrome OS.

Chrome, which launched two years ago saw a shift from simple web pages to a modern Operating System with web applications.

Chrome has grown 300% since January to a total of 120 million users because of speed, simplicity and security. “Crankshaft” technology that is used in Chrome is now 50 times faster than other browsers were 2 years ago and 100 times faster than IE was in 2008.

“It is meant for discovery,” is what Google said about the Chrome Web Store,. The Web Store focuses more like a phone app store on photos, music, games, news, including an app from NY Times, Amazon.com, window-shop, which looks a lot like Window Shop for the iPad. These Chrome Web Stores were also launched today.

Today’s event also focused more on Chrome OS, which was announced last year as an open-source project. They also demonstrated Chrome OS on an Unbranded computer hardware.

Google has partnered with Acer & Samsung for Intel based computers & will be titled as the Chrome Notebooks. These computers will be available in the market by June 2011. Google also said that they are developing this new Chrome OS in discussion with their said partners & entire OS layering, structure will be done according to suggestions. There are other manufacturers who are also developing hardware for the Chrome OS.

When you first buy a brand new Chrome Notebook, it will take less than a minute to set up. First, users will choose their Internet connectivity.

Internet connectivity is required to get the full benefits of Chrome OS as the entire system is based on Internet Cloud. “We’re delivering nothing but the Web,” said Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president who led the Chrome team, at a launch event Tuesday in San Francisco.

To use all possible connectivity options just to get the user online on this OS, they have also added 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi features, though most of the productivity apps like Google Docs, News, E-mail can work in offline mode. So, everything that user creates in offline mode will be synced to his account when connectivity is provided. Google is also trying to partner with Verizon for wireless connectivity on Free Trial & Buy basis. No contract with such partners will be mandatory to buy a Chrome notebook.

You can click your photo with laptop’s webcam to and choose it as a profile image. You will be all set and in with the OS within next 60 seconds flat. Chrome OS will take users online instantly. Chrome also features a Guest account with which you get access to the OS, but in Private Mode where the session will not be saved and will be automatically deleted once logged out.

“In fact the delaying factor is for the user to move their hands and type in the query on their keyboard. It’s so fast, it’s hard to capture on camera.”

Chrome OS makes it possible for users to get “the same experience everywhere,” by propagating user data on every Chrome device you log-in. It will pull all your settings, themes from the cloud. “It is a true cloud computing device.”

Google also said that, currently available Operating Systems were designed when the Internet was not available. Computers get slower over time, which will not be the case for Chrome Notebooks because this OS will automatically be updated every 6 weeks and Chrome Notebooks won’t have any HDD or Spinning Discs.

We wanted to experiment with our idea & implement it for a modern technology & modern users. It also has a built in the jail breaking mode, which will make this a dream machine for any computer geek.

Chrome OS need a Google account to be able to log in to the OS, but Google is also working on incorporating other accounts such as OpenID etc. Chrome Notebooks will have encrypted storage devices with a unique key. You won’t be able to see data unless you enter this key.

Chrome OS will also feature cloud based printed & scanning. They will also add support for such common & widely used devices to begin with. The OS will also give you options to choose the amount of information you want to sync with your account, including your mobile phones, or a browsing history.

There are a lot more things still under development including support for USB devices like a Pen Drive. Google also said, most of the features they want to include the OS should be demanded by the users. It should be that way.